Dispersed emission from single rovibronic quantum states in S1 benzene is measured after Doppler-free two-photon excitation under low pressure conditions (0.3 Torr). This was made possible by a long-term stabilization of the single-mode dye laser yielding a stability of better than 1 MHz/h. The emission spectra of unperturbed rotational levels in the 141 and the 14111 vibronic states reveal a great number of detailed results on Duschinsky rotation and long-range Fermi resonances in the electronic ground state. By contrast, it is seen that the emission spectra from perturbed rovibronic states are contaminated by additional bands. The analysis of these bands leads in most cases to an identification of the coupled dark background state and the responsible rotation–vibration coupling process (H42 resonances). The emission spectra clearly demonstrate that even for a density of states of 60 1/cm−1, coupling in S1 benzene is still selective and far from the statistical limit. It is further demonstrated that the dark and the light states are more efficiently mixed by short-range couplings with coupling matrix elements of some GHz than by long-range Fermi resonances. The Journal of Chemical Physics is copyrighted by The American Institute of Physics.